OnStage - Goodman Theatre

IN THE ALBERT
From the Artistic Director
Photo by Brian Kuhlmann.
Why Other Desert Cities?
Few American plays of the last decade have received the critical or audience acclaim that greeted last season’s
Broadway production of Other Desert Cities, the latest in a distinguished body of work by the playwright Jon
Robin Baitz. At first glance, the story might seem to come from the latest issue of People magazine: the
placid Christmas reunion of an affluent, notably conservative California family is rocked by the revelation of
an about-to-be-published, tell-all memoir by the daughter of the family, a disclosure of secrets that threatens
to fracture both the family’s public image and the unexpectedly fragile bonds that bind parents to children,
brothers to sisters. But the wit, humanity and wisdom of the play’s creator makes Other Desert Cities a work
that is all too rare in the contemporary theater: a highly intelligent, savagely funny and overwhelmingly compassionate
portrait of a family struggling to reconcile the secrets of the past with the realities of the present.
My own association with Jon Robin Baitz began in 2011, when I was asked to direct a production of his marvelous
play Three Hotels at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Although I certainly knew of his previous work
for both the stage and television, I had never had the opportunity to work with him or any of his plays, and
during my work on Three Hotels I gained an incredible amount of affection and respect for both the writer and
his work. Baitz is a writer who remains relatively unknown in Chicago, and when he suggested that the
Goodman be among the first theaters in the country to produce Other Desert Cities after its extremely successful
New York run, I jumped at the chance. At about the same time, Henry Wishcamper, the extraordinary
young director who had had such success with previous Goodman productions of Horton Foote’s Talking
Pictures and the outrageous musical farce Animal Crackers, approached me about possibilities for future
productions here, and I found that his enthusiasm for Baitz’s work (and Other Desert Cities in particular)
matched my own. I knew immediately that Henry would bring exactly the right mix of humor and drama to this
production, and that he would put together a powerhouse cast to bring Baitz’s words and characters to life.
Although Other Desert Cities deals with a very specific family caught in a very specific situation, its brilliance
lies in part in its ability to connect with each of us, no matter what our family backgrounds or relationships
might be. It is a rich, rewarding and powerful piece of theater—and one that I am very pleased to include in
our 2012/2013 Season.
Robert Falls
Artistic Director
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